Strawberry Pancakes!

I hope you, my darling reader, have been doing well these past couple weeks I have been absent. A couple blog updates, I bought my domain, hahanella.com, so it’s easier to type in than the WordPress URL. Also, in an effort to be more professional, I purchased a separate URL, heather-allen.com, which is not up and running yet, but will be soon (I will give you an update on that, when I get to fixing it!). Also, if you want to email me, with questions, blog topics, or just to say hello, you can do so at hahanella@gmail.com.

If you ever needed inspiration for what to make for breakfast/lunch/snack/dinner/supper, look no further than right here because I made some fantastic pancakes this weekend, which I want to share with the world.

I started off with a Jiffy brand cornbread mix that you can buy at any grocery store. This was my first time not making pancakes from the Bisquick Shake and Pour container (I’m still new at not being a lazy chef). Jiffy provided a very easy recipe on the box for pancakes or “corn bread cakes,” which I was craving. I do make a lot of cornbread at my home and always have a mix in the cupboard. I also happened to have about 2 cups of fresh strawberries waiting to be eaten, so I decided to kick these pancakes up a notch with the fruit.

Here we go!

Step one, prep strawberries by washing and cutting them.

Sliced strawberries. I had more than I needed for the recipe

Step two: follow the directions on the Jiffy box for making the batter

1 pkg. Jiffy corn muffin mix

1 egg

2 tbsp. shortening, melted [I used butter]

3/4 cup milk [I used whole milk]

Preheat griddle [or waffle iron, for waffles, but I don’t have one of those yet, but just so you know, it is an option]. Grease lightly. Blend ingredients, batter will be slightly lumpy. Cook on hot griddle. Griddle is hot when a few drops of water dance on the surface.

Batter should look like this:

Wet

My first inclination was to put the sliced strawberries into the batter, but when I researched online, many baking forums suggested that it would ruin the aesthetic of the pancake by coloring the batter (they were mostly referring to fresh and frozen blueberries turning the batter gray). However, another reason is that the berry might burst if it is poured onto the hot skillet, which I guess is a legitimate concern for blueberries, but in the comments, people agreed that adding strawberries as you pour the batter is the best way, so I followed suit.

Step five: set strawberry slices into batter (a), cover with excess batter (b). At this step, I noticed that it was best if I pushed the strawberries into the batter, rather than just politely setting them on top because when I flipped the pancake, the strawberries would fly off to the sides of the skillet. This could also be a fault of my poor flipping skills…

The photos are before I realized I needed to push the slices in, but they were the best ones I had to demonstrate.

(a)(b)

Step six: see if the sides are bubbling and flip when ready. Wait for other side to fluff up and you’re done!

Om nom nom

I was able to make seven pancakes with the batter, but mine were very large. It took a lot of trial and error for flipping times, sometimes burning one side, or flipping too early. But even with burns or any other flaws, these were the best pancakes I’ve had in a long time, way better than the pre-made Bisquick that I had been using previously. I topped with butter and maple syrup for the sweet, carbtastic taste I had been craving! Yum!